Front Cover (Panel) For Print Production

Print Screen of "The People Have Eyes" Original idea for 1st panel of print production

This image of myself is inspired by the album's Imagine and Whatever People Say I Am That's What I'm Not by John Lennon and Arctic Monkeys respectively. We wanted to make the front cover striking yet simplistic at the same time as I feel that they are the most memorable and give the greatest interest into an album. 

 

The image of myself is similar to that of a wanted poster or a "mug shot". I feel this is a strong connotation as it shows rebellion against "the system" and creates an ore of danger around the character. The track, "Fight Back" is all about rebellion and fighting the system as a young person in today's world and was born of the back-lash toward young people after the London Riots of 2011 and the subsequent student cuts, that were unrelated, however struck the same culture hard. 

Billy The Kid "Dead or Alive" Wanted Poster roughly 1880

David Bowie mug shot for possession of pot 1976

Therefore I feel as though the track could be a poster song for the youth of today, particularly the grievances felt by us against the current coalition. Similarly John Lennon's Imagine was written about protesting for peace during the time of the Vietnam war. The track was released in 1971 and the Vietnam war ended in 1975, 5 years later, of course, Lennon was tragically assassinated. The 70's was a turbulent time for Lennon; after having split with the Beatles in 1970 after having claimed that "I (Lennon) got sick and tired of being Paul's (McCartney) back up band.[1]" This came from a row between the band over "I Am The Walrus" being made the B-side to McCartney's track "Hello, Goodbye" and is widely speculated to be one of the reasons the band ultimately split. 


Since then Lennon spent the next 5 years in the USA in-particularly New York where he staged many protests against the Vietnam war and was a spearhead in the "Give Peace a Chance" movement of the Hippies between 68 and 72. One famous protest was Lennon and Yoko Ono's "bed in" in which they stayed in bed together for two different two week periods in Amsterdam then Montreal. 

John Lennon New York City Picture 1971

It is widely considered that Lennon was such a power in the peace movement that the USA were desperate to get him out of their country and when he refused they ordered Mark David Chapman to assassinate him, however this is just a theory and the killer himself credited J.D. Salinger's novel "The Catcher In The Rye" as his motif for the killing. Ironically enough the book is considered to be a portrayal of teenage rebellion against the machine much of what Lennon himself stood for.


The single "Imagine" by John Lennon beautifully intertwines all of these ideals of rebellion and wanting for peace, fairness and love for your fellow man into one neat LP and hence is why the LP is now so recognizable world wide (that and it is, of course, John Lennon). 


Therefore I felt strongly that I wanted to connote such rebellion and protesting into the album artwork for an LP that is the single of a track all about rebellion and protest. This would then make the single marketable as the consumer would see it and instantly (hopefully) see that it very much resembles Lennon's legendary LP and would note that the title of the album and the A-side track would sound rebellious and important.


The idea behind the title "The People Have Eyes" was that it was a play on the terms "The Walls Have Ears" and "Power To The People". The idea behind this connotes to the neo-marxist perspective of the current capitalist system showing great social inequality and that also the ruling class under-estimate the power of the people (proletariat) and that the proletariat also under estimate the power they hold themselves.


This then instigates that the track will cause an uprising as the term "the walls have ears" was coined during WWII and essentially means be careful what you say as people can be eavesdropping or, similarly, the person you're telling something too could repeat it else where. The term is a basic form of intimidation and connotes to "The People Have Eyes" idea that the ruling class should feel intimidated.


Secondly "power to the people" has a wide variety of meanings determined by different contexts however it's first use was in 1960's America when youths of the time used it as a slogan to form rebellion against what they perceived to be the oppression of the youth by the ruling class i.e. "The Establishment". The Black Panther Party (a revolutionary black nationalist and socialist organization active in the United States from 1966 until 1982. [2]) used the phrase "All Power To The People" to protest the ruling class domination of society; and finally the term was used by anti-Vietnam pro-democracy students.Therefore the ideals link together to form "The People Have Eyes" a warning to the ruling class that they should always be 'looking over their shoulder' in fear of the proletariat who are in uproar of protest against the ruling class dominated society.

Adolescent Manifesto Cover (Idea 2)

The ideology behind this title "Adolescent Manifesto" was more to make the album look like a guide book too being young and rebellious, sort of a throw back too old school sex and drugs and rock and roll. The term "adolescent" is defined as "(of a young person) the process of turning from a child to an adult" [3] for obvious reasons the student cuts effected people of this age group, the people effected were "adolescents" and the target audience are adolescents (13-19 year olds). 

Similarly a manifesto is "a public declaration of policy and aims, especially one issued before an election by a political party or candidate." [4] Therefore, by linking the two meanings together, the adolescent manifesto idea simply markets the album as a guide for young people on how to be a young person and the content of the album states how the band want young people to act and who they want them to be; they want young people to follow the teachings of Barnaby Raine and "stand up and fight back".

 
 

The Bible, Mein Kampf (Adolf Hitler) and the Communist Manifesto (Frederick Engels, Karl Marx) All examples of Manifestos, good and bad.

References:

[1] http://ultimateclassicrock.com/b-sides/

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party

[3] Adolescent definition

[4] Manifesto Definition

The Kett Rebellion

The Kett rebellion was a momentus part of Norfolk's history. It began near what is modern day Whymondham in 1549 and was lead by Robert "Ben" Kett; who was originally a target of the Norwich rebels who inturn agreed to lead them instead of meeting his fate at their hands.

Kett's rebellion started in Whymondham as some rioters tore out fencing placed around some land by the lord of the manor, they thought what they were doing was legal however, as the King had issued a proclemation against illegal enclousures.

The locals of Whymondham then held a celebratory annual feast in honor of ST.Thomas Beckett, the co-patron of Whymondham Abbey, on the weekend of the 6th of July 1549. This, however, was illegal as Henry VIII decreed in 1538 that "the name of Thomas Becket should be removed from the church calendar". The following Monday groups of rebels set off to the villages of Hethersett and Morley St.Botolph to tear down more hedges and fences. One of the groups first targets for blood was Flowerdew, who was unpopular in the area for the part he played in the destruction of Whymondham Abbey during the dissolution of the monastries that took place under Henry VIII's reign. Flowerdew bribed the rebels and, inturn, told them to attack the enclosures of Robert Kett.

Album Art Research

The artwork of an LP or an album has evolved to the extent where what you see on the cover is almost as important as what is on the album itself. A good album cover can make the album go down in the history books when the tracks on said album may not be the artists most memorable. For example "Suck It and See" by Arctic Monkeys is commonly considered the bands weakest release, although I don't support this view, however the simple design of the album cover is elegant, simplistic and aesthetically pleasing that it could probably be considered the groups best album for the way it looks, the album also draws a similar sheek style to The Beatles' "The Beatles" commonly refered too as "The White Album". Similarly when the group first came onto the scene their album cover for "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not" was another memorable one with similarities made to that of John Lennon's  "Imagine" LP.

The first album cover for a group to become memorable is always important as it is the first milestone a group has together and a good album cover is always the selling point of an un-heard of group as it's the first thing a buyer rates before they have even heard a track. Memorable first album covers include Oasis' "Definitely Maybe" and The Stone Roses debut album of the same name rated number's 5 and 6 on Q magazine's "100 greatest ever album covers" respectively.

For our album cover I feel as though we should follow in these greats footsteps by keeping a simplistic, sheek design that is aesthetically pleasing on the eye.

However we also need to intertwine such minimalism with the essence of rebellion that is the essence of Fight Back. Many album covers have managed this and as such, have gone down in history as some of the greatest album covers of all time; for example "London Calling" by The Clash.